donbosco
Legend of ZZL
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Do y’all remember “Hippy Stores?” They were my favorite part of Franklin Street in Chapel Hill - at least until I moved there and discovered Rosemary Street and Kirkpatrick’s and Troll’s Bar. Throw in The Bacchae and He’s Not Here for good measure.
But this is not about bars but rather shops of a kind rooted in a genuine culture aimed at countering the dominant paradigm (whatever that might be in its own shape-shifting fetshishistic uber-capitalist mode of the moment). Of course everything ultimately tracked into the profit motive but I’d posit that every person comes to that place on their own - some more slowly or fitfully than others to be sure.
To me in 1975 driving over from #DeepChatham to “Commie Hill” as some were wont to call it in those days, was a journey of a short 34 miles but decades rolled into one. In my memory shops like ‘The Dandelion,’ ‘T’boli,’ ‘Lilypad,’ ‘The Shrunken Head.’ and of course ‘George’s Cheap Joint’ represented a world-wise culture to parallel the promised scholarly enlightenment of campus that I eagerly awaited engaging with once I left high school behind.
And the awaited day finally came in August of 1976 as I left #DeepChatham for Everett Dorm, itself a collection of testosterone, ambition, and anxiety a mere 10 minute stroll through McCorkle Place from iconic Franklin. By that time though Hippies were in decline, not gone mind you, but seriously challenged by resurging Fraternity/Sorority traditions as the Vietnam War and The Draft ended and urgent political consciousness waned in favor of the coming dollarization of academia and, on the horizon…Reaganomics. National Center for Education Statistics from the period show a doubling of business-related majors in those times at the expense of the Humanities and to a lesser extent even STEM disciplines. It seemed that half of Everett were Business majors.
I was tracked into Political Science as lawyering had been the direction of my upbringing as far back as I could remember. That became my degree as there was enough history and composition in it to keep my interest. I discovered years later that I had taken enough history classes to get that degree as well had my path been more calculated. Truth is that I matriculated with very little advisement once past General College, Carolina being a big school and I little more than a number - such was higher education in the Age of Student Surpluses.
But I also found Franklin Street’s evening pleasures attractive as pinball and Schlitz, jukeboxes and Molsons, and the comeraderie of my dorm cohort sent me “downtown” quite regularly. Frat parties meant free beer and co-eds, and mixed in was the lure of Woollen Gym for hoops and the Cobb Courts for tennis. Throw in the influence of WXYC, the brand new Carolina FM student station, on the air in the Spring of my first year, and the bombardment of worlds and ideas and cultures created a Venn Diagram practically solid with overlaps, connections, and incongruencies enough to blow one’s mind.
I had an English Two teacher, a grad student that first semester. His name was Grady Ballenger. And Grady was hip, with a beard and blue jeans, and he made us read and write. He went on to a long career doing the same at Stetson. There he was recognized for his pedagogy. I reached out to him during the pandemic to thank him. He remembered me - he believed - and was glad I had become a teacher.
Classes like Ballenger’s and others urged me to pay attention, taught me How, while the music I heard and experienced made me imagine more broadly the infinity of worlds beyond. Those “Hippy Stores” were filled with old postcards (I was, and remain, fascinated by the chauvinism in Ruth Orkin’s “American Girl in Italy” - bought as a postcard in T’boli) - posters, paraphernalia, and papers, many wrought in Belle Epoque Art schemes or Asian Designs or American Indian Motifs that began to move into my life and sense of style. The photo here is of a tapestry I bought 49 years ago and still love. It graced many coffee tables and kitchen tables in “notorious” student houses and has the permanent stains to prove it. Chapel Hill and the offerings of the “Hippy Stores” made Aesthetics important for the first time in my existence. Such was the “Southern Part of Heaven” to me as my teen years faded into twenties and now sixties even. There is a list below of memory joggers - add your own if you feel it…memory or reflection perhaps if you’re moved.
George’s Cheap Joint
The Flower Ladies
School Kid’s Records
Andromeda
Oasis Natural Foods
Audio Works
The Continental Cafe
The Dandelion
Hector’s
Stereo Sound
The Painted Bird
Looking Glass Cafe
T’boli
High Noon
John Ganga
Yippies
The Internationalist
Fair Exchange
Sunshine Cafe
Pyewacket
Sunshine Cafe
The Lilypad
People’s Produce
Add one? Two?
